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Comparisons with earlier Japanese successes using conventional air attacks aren't all that useful: by late 1944 Japanese didn't have the same level of skilled pilots at all and their aircraft mostly weren't competitive with US fighters. The war was lost, and proceeding with 1942 tactics wasn't going to achieve anything either.

You can read more in Twilight Warriors.

You can read more in Twilight Warriors.

Comparisons with earlier Japanese successes using conventional air attacks aren't all that useful: by late 1944 Japanese didn't have the same level of skilled pilots at all and their aircraft mostly weren't competitive with US fighters. The war was lost, and proceeding with 1942 tactics wasn't going to achieve anything either.

You can read more in Twilight Warriors.

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As a strategy (i.e. something to win the war with)?:

No. Japan should have avoided direct war with the US, as a question of national survival. Kamikazes were not going to help in the long run. They were only a symptom of Japan's hopeless "strategy" of inflicting unpalatable losses on the US and forcing the US to accept a draw and ceasefire.

As a tactic? It depends on the scope of what you analyze

One thing to keep in mind was the context of their main deployment, during the Battle of Okinawa.

Rarely did the kamikaze pilots, at Okinawa, have the training or navigational skill to find the main body of the US fleet. Instead, time and again, they pounded the hapless radar picket destroyers which were very far away, at the north end of the US body.

One thing to keep in mind was the context of their main deployment, during the Battle of Okinawa.

Rarely did the kamikaze pilots have the training or navigational skill to find the main body of the US fleet. Instead, time and again, they pounded the hapless radar picket destroyers which were very far away, at the north end of the US body.

As a strategy (i.e. something to win the war with)?:

No. Japan should have avoided direct war with the US, as a question of national survival. Kamikazes were not going to help in the long run. They were only a symptom of Japan's hopeless "strategy" of inflicting unpalatable losses on the US and forcing the US to accept a draw and ceasefire.

As a tactic? It depends on the scope of what you analyze

One thing to keep in mind was the context of their main deployment, during the Battle of Okinawa.

Rarely did the kamikaze pilots, at Okinawa, have the training or navigational skill to find the main body of the US fleet. Instead, time and again, they pounded the hapless radar picket destroyers which were very far away, at the north end of the US body.

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Just to be clear: by no way was this going to be a war-winning tactic. The allied fleets were too powerful by that point and in any case Japan was also being starved and bombed into submission. And, as I have answered before, Japan didn't really start the war with a strategy to knock the US out. But were Kamikazes a rational use of the planes they did have, with the pilots they had, assuming they wanted to continue the war? Some of picket ships reported biplanes attacking them. What were those going to do using regular tactics? True, the same Kamikaze might have been more usefully deployed during the invasion of mainland Japan, rather than wasted on Okinawa.

Just to be clear: by no way was this going to be a war-winning tactic. The allied fleets were too powerful by that point and in any case Japan was also being starved and bombed into submission. And, as I have answered before, Japan didn't really start the war with a strategy to knock the US out. But were Kamikazes a rational use of the planes they did have, with the pilots they had, assuming they wanted to continue the war? Some of picket ships reported biplanes attacking them. What were those going to do using regular tactics?

Just to be clear: by no way was this going to be a war-winning tactic. The allied fleets were too powerful by that point and in any case Japan was also being starved and bombed into submission. And, as I have answered before, Japan didn't really start the war with a strategy to knock the US out. But were Kamikazes a rational use of the planes they did have, with the pilots they had, assuming they wanted to continue the war? Some of picket ships reported biplanes attacking them. What were those going to do using regular tactics? True, the same Kamikaze might have been more usefully deployed during the invasion of mainland Japan, rather than wasted on Okinawa.

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